Tuesday, December 31, 2013

As Congress begins the struggle over raising the federal
minimum wage, we can gain some historical perspective from an event 100 years
ago this week.

On Jan. 5, 1914, Henry Ford did something
extraordinary, even for him.

The man who developed the Model T and the moving assembly
line called a news conference in Detroit and stunned the world by announcing
that workers in his factory would make $5 per day, more than doubling the
average worker’s wages.

“Even the boy who sweeps up the floors will get that
much,” the New York Times reporter marveled.

Every schoolchild knows that when Ford hiked wages,
his employees were able to buy the cars they built, which had the salubrious
business effect of increasing company sales.

The government didn’t order Ford to raise his wages,
of course, but proponents of raising the federal minimum wage say doing so is a
matter of fairness. Someone working full time should not live in poverty. A
full-time minimum wage worker makes $15,000 a year. If she has a child, her
income falls below the poverty level of $15,510 for a family of two in 2013.

Besides, and here’s where Ford’s example comes in
handy, increasing the buying power of low-wage workers helps boost the economy.
When people on the margin get more money, they spend it.

Thirteen states and several cities are wishing
workers a Happy New Year by raising minimum wage rates in 2014. In all, 21
states will have higher hourly rates than the federal $7.25 an hour. Eleven
other states and the District of Columbia are expected to follow in the coming
year.

Democrats on Capitol Hill want to raise the rate to
$10.10 in three steps over two years and index future increases to inflation.
President Barack Obama supports the move.

Even though polls show most Americans favor raising
the wage floor, it’s a no-go in the House, where Republicans say doing so is a
job-killer because employers won’t hire as many young, inexperienced workers if
individual wages are higher. Economists disagree
about this, but most say adverse effects of raising the wage rate are small.

In Ford’s case, there was another, more practical reason
for raising workers’ pay. His primary objective was to reduce attrition,
according to a corporate history. Worker turnover on the monotonous assembly
lines was high. At the same time he raised pay, he cut the workday from nine
hours to eight and said he’d share profit with men workers (but not boys or
women unless they were supporting families. It was 1914, remember.)

Ford had innovative ways of treating employees. No
one would be fired unless for “unfaithfulness or irremediable inefficiency.” If
layoffs were necessary due to decreased demand, he would try to time them with
the harvest season so that men wouldn’t “lie idle and dissipate their savings."

Ford’s treasurer, James Couzens, said, “It is our belief that
social justice begins at home...believing as we do, that a division of our
earnings between capital and labor is unequal, we have sought a plan of relief
suitable for our business.”

Newspapers hailed Ford’s generosity and humanity. Critics
wondered if he was a socialist. The Wall Street Journal complained that he had
brought “biblical or spiritual principles into a field where they do not
belong.”

But Ford’s
ploy worked as he intended. Thousands of job-seekers flocked to the Ford Motor
Company employment office from the American South as well as Europe. Turnover in the factory declined, and with an
eight-hour day, Ford could run three shifts instead of two, increasing
productivity. Ford Motor Company’s profits doubled from 1914 to 1916.

Today, the public is focusing on the plight of
low-wage earners. Fast-food workers in at least a hundred cities have staged
walkouts to call for pay of $15 an hour, and the right to form unions.

The coming struggle over raising the federal minimum
wage may be mostly political theatrics in an election year, but it raises
questions about work and its rewards. It
can’t be healthy to see every policy question as a game with winners and losers:
If workers win, employers have to lose. Why?

As Ford showed 100 years ago, sometimes doing the
right thing can make everyone a winner. The $5-a-day wage helped create the American
middle class.

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Trying to put unlucky 2013 behind him, President Barack
Obama was upbeat about the New Year.

“I firmly believe that 2014 can be a breakthrough year for
America,” he said Dec. 20 at a White House news conference before heading to
Hawaii for vacation.

“It’s probably too
early to declare an outbreak of bipartisanship,” the president conceded, “But
it’s also fair to say we’re not condemned to endless gridlock.”

OK, it’s the holiday season, so let’s be charitable. It’s
possible that 2014 will be more productive than 2013 in the nation’s capital.
But don’t bet your new MacBook Air on Democrats and Republicans suddenly
discovering they have a lot in common.

Everything you need to know about 2014 in Washington can be
summarized in two words: midterm elections.

Obama and members of Congress are battling for their
survival. Everything they say – and they will say far more than they will do --
will be focused on winning middle-class votes. The technical term is pandering,
and both parties are masters of the craft.

The stakes are large. If Obama’s approval rating doesn’t
rebound from the miserable 42 percent he hit in the latest CBS News poll, he’ll
be an albatross for Democratic candidates running for the House and Senate next
November. And if Republicans don’t stop playing
fiscal brinksmanship games without offering alternatives, they risk writing their
own political obituaries.

Some things won’t change when the ball drops at Times
Square. Health care and the economy will dominate politics. Republicans will
keep describing Obamacare as a train wreck and the economy as an abject failure.
Democrats hope voters won’t listen once people start getting insurance coverage
and the economy continues to grow. Yes,
those are big ifs.

Republicans in the Senate and House are convinced that
public disapproval of the Affordable Care Act will translate into GOP votes. That
means more hostile hearings presided over by House Republicans and more horror
tales from Senate Republicans, although we may be spared another attempt to
defund the law, given the political hits the GOP took from forcing a government
shutdown last fall in a futile attempt to stop the law.

The bipartisan budget agreement this month showed that
compromise is possible on Capitol Hill. An early test of whether bipartisanship
will last will come over the debt ceiling. The Treasury Department says the amount
the government can borrow must be increased by early March so we can continue
paying our bills.

Conservative Republicans will demand budget concessions; Obama
has reiterated his refusal to negotiate. Such a standoff also led to the
shutdown.

But 2014 has the added intrigue of Senate Minority Leader
Mitch McConnell’s tough re-election fight in Kentucky. With only a 31 percent
approval rating in his state, McConnell is the least popular senator in the
land. In Kentucky, though, 31 percent was also
Obama’s approval rating, which doesn’t help Democrats.

If McConnell beats tea party challenger Matt Bevin in the
Republican primary, he still has a formidable general election competitor in Democrat
Alison Lundergan Grimes, Kentucky secretary of state.

For their part, Democrats on Capitol Hill will focus on
working families and income inequality. A priority is raising the minimum wage.
Sen. Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat who’s retiring, has proposed an increase from
$7.25 to $10.10 an hour, which Obama supports.

Republicans counter that a higher minimum wage will mean that
employers hire fewer workers. Both sides see the minimum wage as a potent
campaign issue.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says the first order of
business in January will be extending long-term unemployment benefits, which
Congress allowed to expire this month. House
Speaker John Boehner may go along with the extension, if spending cuts are part
of the package.

Progressive Democrats, including Harkin and Elizabeth Warren
of Massachusetts, are defying conventional wisdom that curbing entitlements
must be part of any long-term fiscal plan.
They say Social Security benefits need to be raised, not cut.

Critics say it’s irresponsible to suggest raising benefits, which
would require higher payroll taxes, and nobody, but nobody, expects anything to
happen. But it does make a dandy campaign promise.

So much pandering ahead in 2014, and we haven’t even touched
on 2016. Happy New Year!

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Senator Tom Coburn is making a splash with “Wastebook 2013,”
his detailed list of nearly $30 billion in wasteful federal spending projects.

The Oklahoma Republican has become a hero in some quarters
for his annual report, revealing the wacky ways the government spends
taxpayers’ money.

Among the 100 projects he ridicules this year: $325,525 for a National Institutes of Health
study on angry wives, $914,000 to promote romance novels, $17.5 million in tax
breaks for brothels in Nevada, and $3 million for NASA research into, in Coburn’s
words, “the search for intelligent life . . . in Congress.”

Good ones. The report, released Tuesday, always makes for
entertaining, if annoying, reading, although few in Congress pay it much
attention. That’s because most of the bone-headed spending decisions are more
complicated than they first appear -- and because career politicians know it’s
better to give and to receive.

Coburn comes across as a Grinch who’s particularly vexed
that the government helps Christmas tree farmers. He scoffs at the Agriculture
Department’s Specialty Crop Block Grants that go to the Virginia Christmas Tree
Growers Association and five other Christmas tree groups, as well as to the
California Dried Plum Board, Vermont Maple Sugar Makers Association, Michigan
Maple Syrup Association, and dozens of wine promotions, among others.

In Coburn’s home state, the Oklahoma Pecan Growers used
grant money to attend international trade shows, which they said helped expand
their market overseas, benefitting the state’s economy.

Altogether, specialty crop grants totaled $50 million, which
tells me the government is spreading a fairly small amount to reach a lot of
farmers.

Coburn called out the Agriculture
Department’s Value-Added Producers grant program that gave Glenmary Gardens in
Bristol, Va., $213,000 to expand processing and marketing of locally grown
fruits and vegetables for jellies, ice creams and flavored syrups. He also disapproves of free wine and cheese
on Amtrak’s Auto Train.

I had no idea my tax money was promoting American prunes in
Japan or a “USA Pear Road Show” in China, but that strikes me as more wholesome
and sensible than other government endeavors.

Coburn, a medical doctor, concedes that some of the projects
are OK. He questions whether they’re the right spending when we’re $17 trillion
in debt.

Much of the big-dollar waste, no surprise, is at the Defense
Department, which is trashing $7 billion in military equipment in Afghanistan
rather than selling it or sending it home. The rationale is that it costs more
to transport it than to leave it.

Coburn is retiring next year, and one wonders who in
Congress, if anyone, will chronicle waste, although Coburn followed Sen.
William Proxmire, Democrat of Wisconsin, whose monthly Golden Fleece awards hitting
government waste made headlines from 1975 to 1987. Proxmire died in 2005.

Some tea partiers contend Coburn’s 177-page report is itself
an example of wasteful spending. How
much staff time and money does it cost to produce a report with 930
footnotes? Couldn’t he have done it with
fewer pages and less flashy graphics?

They’re good questions, but don’t hold your breath for
answers. And that’s another problem with
singling out projects as “stupid” and “egregious,” words Coburn throws around
liberally. Everyone has a different idea of what’s wasteful.

It’s incomprehensible to me that the State Department spent
$630,000 of our hard-earned money to buy “friends” and followers for its
Facebook and Twitter pages. Or that a
million-dollar bus stop with wi-fi, heated benches and sidewalks in Arlington,
Va., has a roof that barely protects against rain and sun.

The reality is that most of the wasteful projects in this
year’s report could appear in the next one because of the inertia of federal
agencies, the near total absence of congressional oversight and political
support for spending.

“The reason it’s hard work to cut spending is because
somebody’s ox gets gored,” Coburn says. “Somebody doesn’t get money. Most
members of Congress are more interested in getting themselves re-elected than
they are in fixing what’s wrong with the country.”

Economist Milton Friedman took a philosophical approach. “I
say thank God for government waste,” he said in a 1975 interview. “If
government is doing bad things, it’s only the waste that prevents the harm from
being greater.”

Thursday, December 12, 2013

Asked how to
start writing a novel, Ernest Hemingway supposedly replied, “First you defrost
the refrigerator.”

Ah,
procrastination. Everyone puts off getting to work – and Congress is the
classic repeat offender. But Sen. Patty Murray of Washington and Rep. Paul D.
Ryan of Wisconsin deserve kudos for defrosting the Capitol fridge – at least
for a while. We can all hope the thaw lasts so Congress can do its job.

Murray, a liberal
Democrat who heads the Senate budget committee, and Ryan, a conservative
Republican who’s chairman of the House budget panel, did what many thought
impossible. They delivered a compromise budget agreement that keeps the
government open -- no shutdown! -- for two years. During a couple of months of negotiations,
they reportedly bonded over football and fishing and agreed, for the greater
good of the country, on a deal neither likes much.

“I see this
agreement as a step in the right direction,” Ryan said Tuesday, announcing the
agreement. “In a divided government, you don’t always get what you want.”

“For far too
long here in Washington, D.C., compromise has been considered a dirty word,
especially when it comes to the budget,” Murray said. “We have broken through
the partisanship and the gridlock.”

Breaking
through partisanship and gridlock, even temporarily and for a modest deal, is no
small matter. Since 2011, Congress has staggered from budget crisis to budget
crisis, raising the blood pressure of the business leaders and infuriating
ordinary citizens. The last crisis ended in a 16-day government shutdown in
October and low approval ratings for Congress.

The bipartisan
deal is far from perfect. It’s not a Grand Bargain that tames the country’s
appetite for entitlement programs. It’s an OK deal that has more thorns than
blossoms.

Ryan insists
the deal doesn’t raise taxes, but Republicans balk at its higher airport and
other fees. Democrats resent the lack of an extension of unemployment benefits
for more than a million long-term jobless workers. The deal also trims pensions
of younger military retirees and requires new federal workers to contribute
more to their pensions.

President Barack
Obama approves, saying, “This agreement doesn’t include everything I’d like –
and I know many Republicans feel the same way. That’s the nature of
compromise.”

My favorite comment
on the deal came from Eugene Steuerle, budget expert at the Urban Institute,
who told the Washington Post: "With this little package, we're not going to climb out of the hole
we've dug. All we're doing is agreeing to stop throwing shovels at each
other."

Members of Congress get to go home for Christmas, unlike last year. But
the masters of putting off until tomorrow what
they should have done yesterday have much work ahead. Their to-do list is long,
starting with the farm bill, immigration reform, raising the minimum wage and tax
reform.

On C-SPAN
the other morning, a viewer named Johnny from Woodbridge, Va., called Democratic
Rep. John Garamendi of California on the carpet for Congress’ slack work habits.
Johnny said members of Congress don’t even work 10 hours a month.

“We actually
work at least 10 hours a month,” Garamendi said, although he conceded, “The
amount of work is very, very slim.”

When another
viewer suggested Congress should work harder earlier in the session, Garamendi said,
“Congress doesn’t act much differently than most of us did in high school and
college.” He sounded flip but Congress loves to bunch its work at the end.

“It’s human
nature. Sort of like college students cramming for exams,” says Martin P.
Paone, who retired in 2008 after 30 years on the Senate Democratic cloakroom
staff.

Senate Historian Donald Ritchie notes that in the very first Congress, Sen. William Maclay of
Pennsylvania complained in his diary that he was overwhelmed by bills in the
last days of that Congress. Maclay said he didn't have enough time to read
everything that was coming through, Ritchie said. Some things never
change.

But with the
2014 congressional elections, the House is scheduled to be in session only 113
days next year, nearly two weeks less than this year. More work is likely to
pile up or be postponed. Murray and Ryan may have defrosted the refrigerator,
but there’s a loaded freezer waiting in the congressional garage.

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

As I listened the other day to a politician talk about
ways to strengthen the economy, a thought flitted across my mind: “This guy has
ideas. Maybe he should run for president.”

Ha! OK, I knew the speaker was President Barack Obama.
But after nearly five years in the Oval Office, he still manages to sound like
an outsider who could do great things if only he had the chance.

And that’s why -- with a job approval rating of only
about 40 percent, his signature legislative achievement still under fire and
his agenda in jeopardy -- the president hit the campaign trail. He launched a three-week
push ostensibly to persuade people to sign up for health care online but also to
remind voters why they re-elected him just a year ago.

Naturally, like many another political outsider, Obama
has discovered that middle class frustrations “are at an all-time high.”

The botched rollout of the online health insurance exchanges
didn’t instill confidence in him or the federal government, he concedes, but he
insists that the law will stand and eventually will work just fine. Even so, that
alone won’t cure the middle class malaise that started decades ago, he says.
Malaise, by the way, is my word, not his.

“Their
frustration is rooted in their own daily battles – to make ends meet, to pay
for college, buy a home, save for retirement. It’s rooted in the nagging sense
that no matter how hard they work, the deck is stacked against them. And it’s
rooted in the fear that their kids won’t be better off than they were,” he said.

Candidates of both
parties cozy up to the middle class, of course, but the question is how.
Republicans want government to stand aside. Obama and Democrats believe
government has a role in ensuring equal opportunity.

“A dangerous and growing inequality and lack of upward mobility…has
jeopardized middle-class America’s basic bargain -- that if you work hard, you
have a chance to get ahead,” Obama said
Wednesday at an event sponsored by the Center for American Progress, a
left-leaning think tank that has provided several Obama administration
insiders.

He
revived a host of ideas: increase the federal minimum wage, now $7.25 an hour; strengthen
collective bargaining; end the wage disparity between men and women; tighten
the tax code and use the additional revenue to rebuild roads and bridges, extend
preschool to every child, and repeal the across-the-board spending cuts called
the sequester.

“I
believe this is the defining challenge of our time: Making sure our economy
works for every working American…And I know I’ve raised this issue before, and
some will ask why I raise the issue again right now,” he said.

His critics say it’s no mystery, that he’s trying to
change the subject from the health care mess and trying to give Democrats
ground to stand on in next year’s midterm congressional elections. So what?

Obama
and everyone around him have apologized, and the marketplace system finally is
running more smoothly. The elections in 11 months could make or break his last
two years as president. He acknowledged he’s putting out his ideas as a marker.

“I realize we are not
going to resolve all of our political debates over the best ways to reduce
inequality and increase upward mobility this year, or next year, or in the next
five years,” he says.

What’s important is “that we have a serious debate
about these issues. For the longer that current trends are allowed to continue, the more
it will feed the cynicism and fear that many Americans are feeling right now.”

Obama
says he’s willing to work with Republicans. “If Republicans have concrete plans
that will actually reduce inequality, build the middle class, provide more
ladders of opportunity to the poor, let’s hear them…” And so on. “You owe it to
the American people to tell us what you are for, not just what you’re against.”

But
can the battle-scarred Democratic president find common ground with
battle-scarred Republican lawmakers?

House
Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, complains that the House has passed nearly 150
bills that he claims would help the economy, but all have died in the Senate,
which is controlled by Democrats. They include multiple attempts at repealing
the health law.

“When
will they start listening to the American people?” Boehner asks.

It’s
hard to listen when both sides have turned a deaf ear to the other.

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

It’s not just a bumper strip slogan. Some Americans actually
do practice random acts of kindness.

At fast food restaurants around the country, some customers
are paying for the orders placed by strangers in the next car.

“Drive-through generosity is happening across America and
parts of Canada, sometimes resulting in unbroken chains of hundreds of cars
paying in turn for the person behind them,” Kate Murphy reported last month in
The New York Times.

“We really don’t know why it’s happening but if I had to
guess, I’d say there is just a lot of stuff going on in the country that people
find discouraging,” Mark Moraitakis, director of hospitality at Chick-fil-A,
told Murphy, adding, “Paying it forward is a way to counteract that.”

“Pay it forward” refers to repaying a kindness by doing
something kind for another person. The
concept was popularized by a 1999 novel by Catherine Hyde Ryan and movie
starring Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt. A high school teacher challenges his
students to change the world. One boy helps three people and asks each of them
to help three more people…You see where this is going.

Moraitakis is onto something. People like helping others – on their own
terms. Compulsory kindness doesn’t cut it.

You don’t see many people paying it forward in Washington, a
city famous for pay backs. But when legendary comedian Carol Burnett came to
town last month to receive the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, she showed
how it’s done.

Burnett asked that Rosemary Watson, a comedic newcomer who
does dead-on impersonations of Hillary Clinton and other prominent female
politicians, be given the chance to perform at the Kennedy Center awards gala. The two had never met. Watson had written
Burnett a fan letter, and Burnett had watched Watson’s videos on YouTube.
Impressed, she wanted to give a boost to the younger woman’s career.

“The thing is, you pay it forward,” Burnett said.”Because
when I got started, somebody gave me a break when I was 21 years old, and I
wanted to go to New York.”

Paying it forward can be as simple as letting someone go
ahead in line at the grocery store. Many people pay it forward with their time.
It turns out there are special benefits for people who volunteer.

The December issue of Oprah Winfrey’s O Magazine touts “Four
Amazing Health Benefits of Helping Others.”
Studies show that volunteers may live longer, be happier, manage their
pain better and lower their blood pressure more than non-volunteers.

Many people prefer to pay it forward with cash. Individual
charitable giving rose almost 4 percent last year but still lags its
pre-recession peak. This is one area where young people are a shining example.

Nine of 10 kids between the ages of 8 and 19 give to
charity, according to a recent study by the Women’s Philanthropic Institute at
Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.

Parents, take note: Moms and dads who talk to their children
about giving to charity significantly increase the likelihood that the children
will give. Talking may be more influential than parental role-modeling of charitable
giving, the report says.

We all have a chance to pay it forward on Giving Tuesday -- the
Tuesday after Thanksgiving. It’s a day to give back at the start of the holiday
season, after our two biggest days of getting, Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Giving Tuesday was created last year by Henry Timms of the
92nd Street Y, a cultural and community nonprofit center in New York
City. He’s the son of one of my closest
friends, but I’d be writing about this brilliant project anyway.

In its first year, Giving Tuesday raised $10 million for more
than 2,500 nonprofit groups. More groups are participating this year. Giving
Tuesday doesn’t collect the money. Its genius is that it encourages each person
to choose a favorite charity and publicize the choice on social media.

If you’re interested in paying it forward, join the movement.
It might make you feel as good as those you help.

Thursday, November 21, 2013

When President Barack Obama composed his thoughts about the
Gettysburg address, he wrote much as Abraham Lincoln did 150 years ago. He used pen and paper.

The White House Tuesday released both the handwritten and
typed versions of Obama’s essay. Had Obama, or more likely an aide, simply typed
the tribute on a laptop and hit Send, the text would have been just another news
release. Instead, many people stopped to
read the handwritten page.

In our aggressively digital age, the handwritten note or
essay may be as practical as a top hat, but no writing is more personal. (OK, writing a check for the electric bill is
hardly personal, but online banking has freed people from most check-writing.)

When we handwrite a letter, we send something beyond the words.
Holding the same paper, the reader glimpses the fallible human being who held
the pen. For example, the president
sometimes forgets to cross his Ts. This may not
come as a surprise.

It’s rare for most adults to take the time to find pen and
paper, wait for thoughts to flow and put them down – although we can. Sadly,
we’re in danger of losing the art of writing by hand.

Schools long ago let penmanship slip. Cursive writing is so
foreign that some children can’t read the handwritten letters their
grandparents send. Parents have to
translate.

The Common Core educational standards for grades K-12 dropped
penmanship in favor of keyboarding as an important skill. Everyone needs to use
a computer keyboard, of course. Word processing is the inelegant term for what
we do at the keyboard. We produce a commodity called content.

We moderns talk and type
constantly, but our tweets and status updates are often out of our hands before
our brain has registered the meaning of our words.

Must our choice be keyboard or pen? Why not both? Among the
45 states that have adopted Common Core standards, seven want to reinstate cursive
writing instruction, the Associated Press reports. They are California, Idaho,
Indiana, Kansas, Massachusetts, North Carolina and Utah.

In North Carolina, the
“back to basics” educational movement means that students are learning to write
by hand and to memorize the multiplication tables. Proponents say cursive writing helps eye-hand
coordination and improves reading and writing. Critics say practicing cursive
script is irrelevant, similar to using an abacus or slide rule.

While that debate simmers, we all could learn from the presidents
who believed in the power of the handwritten word.

Ronald Reagan was a prolific letter writer, penning
thousands upon thousands of letters. In the White House, he turned his
handwritten letters over to typists who prepared them for mailing. The former
president was 83 when he wrote by hand the poignant letter telling Americans that
he was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.

“I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset
of my life,” Reagan wrote on Nov. 6, 1994. “I know that for America there will
always be a bright dawn ahead.” He died in June 2004. His letters have been
gathered in several books.

The letters of President George H.W. Bush, another
prodigious correspondent by hand, were compiled in “All the Best, George Bush:
My Life in Letters and Other Writings,” published earlier this year.

Obama has had a habit of reading 10 letters a night from
citizens, and he responds by hand to a lucky few. Some recipients burst into tears and vow to save
the president’s missives for posterity. Human nature being what it is, though, others
race to see how much the letters will fetch from online auctions.

Speaking of which, earlier
this year Obama’s half-brother put two of the president’s hand-written notes for
sale for $30,000.

Such commercialism cheapens the seller but not the handwritten
word or the writer.

Obama’s handwritten essay about the Gettysburg address at
150, along with similar essays by several former presidents and other notables,
will be on display at the Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, Ill.

You don’t have to be famous to pick up a pen and write. Your
handwritten words are just as priceless.

Thursday, November 14, 2013

Shopping on Thanksgiving Day is a recent – and
regrettable – trend, but there’s nothing new about retailers trying to maximize
the number of shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

In the 1930s, business interests persuaded President
Franklin D. Roosevelt to alter the calendar, and therein lies a cautionary
tale.

By the tradition established by Abraham Lincoln,
Thanksgiving was on the last Thursday of November, although there was no law. Starting
about 1933, the National Retail Dry Goods Association began agitating to
advance the holiday’s date to help spur sales as the country tried to emerge
from the Depression.

Roosevelt finally agreed in 1939, when the last
Thursday fell on Nov. 30, just 24 days before Christmas. He announced in August
that Thanksgiving would be on Nov. 23.

The New Yorker explained that “Americans
traditionally delay their Christmas shopping until after they have eaten their
turkey, and when, as would have happened this year, the period is narrowed down
to scarcely more than three weeks, the retail business takes a beating.”

Roosevelt’s proclamation applied only to the
District of Columbia and federal workers, but it started a war over those seven
days. A front page headline in The New York Times read: “Shift in Thanksgiving
Date Arouses the Whole Country.”

Among the aggrieved were makers of calendars and
schedulers of school vacations and college football games. Half the governors
chose different dates for Thanksgiving, so people were perplexed about when to
celebrate. The turkey growers, though, said they’d have no problem fattening up
the birds a week early.

Indignant Republicans claimed
the president had assumed dictatorial powers. (Sound familiar?) The mayor of Atlantic City
said residents could eat twice – on Thanksgiving and “Franksgiving.”

The Rev. Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, who later would
popularize “positive thinking,” preached that it was “questionable thinking and
contrary to the meaning of Thanksgiving for the president of this great nation
to tinker with a sacred religious day on the specious excuse it will help
Christmas sales.”

Citizens on both sides of the issue flooded the
White House with letters and telegrams. From
South Dakota came a letter urging the president to remember that “we are not
running a Russia or communistic government.”

For more reaction, take a look at documents
in the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and the National Archives,
including an article in the Archives’ Fall 1990 Prologue magazine by the late
historian G. Wallace Chessman, all available online.

So, did changing the date work to
boost sales? Not really. Business analysts said retail spending was about the
same in 1939 as in 1938. In states with an early Thanksgiving, sales were more
spread out; in late Thanksgiving states, spending was more concentrated in the
week before Christmas.

Two years later, as confusion still
reigned, FDR announced his “experiment” of changing the date had failed. Congress
officially made Thanksgiving the fourth Thursday in November.

That, of course, didn’t fix the
shopping dilemma. Thanksgiving 2013 is Nov. 28, which means about a week less
of prime holiday shopping. Many who work in retail will have to cut their Thanksgiving
celebrations short and head to the mall.

More big chain stores are starting Black
Friday sales on Thanksgiving, including Macy’s, Walmart, Target, Best Buy,
Kohls, JC Penney and the Gap.

So does opening on Thanksgiving Day boost
overall sales? Not really. Analysts say it just cuts sales on the actual Black
Friday. Last year, when a few retailers took the bold step of opening on
Thanksgiving, holiday sales were up 3.5 percent over 2011. That was a smaller
gain than in 2011, before stores opened on Thanksgiving, when sales rose 5.6
percent over 2010.

Retailers keep encroaching on
Thanksgiving because they face ever stronger pressure from online merchants.
And, let’s face it, some people do like to shop on Thanksgiving. They tend to
be between 18 to 34, which is also the largest group of Black Friday shoppers.

Some marketing analysts predict that
in five years Thanksgiving will be just another shopping day.

Enjoy your pumpkin pie while you still
can – before galloping commercialism triumphs over tradition.

Thursday, November 7, 2013

“The world will little note
nor long remember what we say here…” So Abraham Lincoln predicted in his brief,
eloquent speech at the dedication of the cemetery in Gettysburg on Nov. 19,
1863.

The sesquicentennial of the Civil War mostly has commemorated bloody
battles. Now we turn to the powerful words that shaped our views.

At
Gettysburg National Battlefield Park, Dedication Day ceremonies are Nov. 19. A
series of lectures, book-signings and other events Nov. 16 to 23 will
commemorate the Gettysburg address.

The address is one of
the most noted and quoted speeches in history, but Lincoln
wasn’t the main speaker that day. The orator was Edward Everett, a former
senator and secretary of state who delivered a two-hour address. We laugh about
long-winded Everett, but, historian Garry Wills reminds us, in the 19th
century lengthy dramatic speeches were a kind of performance art.

Four
months earlier, on July 3, 1863, the Union had won the three-day Battle of
Gettysburg. More than 50,000 Confederate and Union troops were dead, captured, missing
or wounded. Bodies that had been hastily buried in makeshift graves on the
battlefield were still being interred in the new Soldiers’ National Cemetery.

Lincoln
had been invited to make “a few appropriate remarks.” His 272-word speech
changed forever the way Americans think about our country and the Civil War.

“Up to
the Civil War `the United States’ was invariably a plural noun: `The United
States are a free country.’ After Gettysburg it became a singular: `The United
States is a free country,’” writes Wills, author of the 1992 book “Lincoln at
Gettysburg.”

In his
remarks, Lincoln reached back to the Declaration of Independence to reframe the
war as a fight for liberty and freedom. The nation was “conceived in liberty
and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal,” he said.

And, “we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in
vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that
government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from
the earth.”

Lincoln
did not mention the Emancipation Proclamation. In effect for less than a year, it
had freed many, but not all, slaves. The war would grind on for two more years,
but in two minutes, he assigned surviving Americans the task of renewing the
promise of freedom for all. His critics were livid. Some complained that the
president was deliberately misleading the public about American history. The country
was founded on the Constitution, which had avoided any mention of equality.

A Chicago
newspaper called the address “a perversion of history so flagrant that the most
extended charity cannot regard it as otherwise than willful,” historian David
Herbert Donald writes in his 1995 book, “Lincoln.”

Donald
says Wilbur F. Storey also wrote that the soldiers who perished on the
battlefield died “to uphold the Constitution and the Union created by it,” not
to “dedicate the nation to `the proposition that all men are created equal.’”

It seems
odd in our word-flooded society that a few simple words could have such lasting
impact. Our politicians blab constantly, their every forgettable syllable and gesture
recorded, tweeted and analyzed.

In
contrast, there’s no definitive account of the Gettysburg ceremonies. We don’t know
when Lincoln wrote his remarks. Historian Wills dismisses as a silly myth the familiar
story that the president scribbled his remarks on scrap paper on the train from
Washington. At least five handwritten, slightly different copies survive.

The crowd
interrupted Lincoln multiple times with applause -- or not at all, depending on
who’s telling the story. The Associated Press
reporter who transcribed Lincoln’s speech inserted brackets five times to indicate
applause, but years later said he’d arbitrarily included the brackets and wasn’t
sure there had been any applause, says historian Glenn LaFantasie.

Some say Lincoln
thought the speech a failure. “That speech won’t scour!” he supposedly said
afterwards. “Scour” referred to plows used on the prairies that failed to turn over
the heavy soil, Donald explains. Wills says Lincoln was satisfied with the
speech.

One thing
is clear. When we read the address 150 years later, Lincoln’s ideas still speak
to us. It’s well worth remembering the power of words.

Thursday, October 31, 2013

In the health exchange website
debacle, Washington has moved through denial, anger and finger pointing. Now
we’ve hit the apology stage.

On Wednesday, Kathleen Sebelius, the
secretary of health and human services, called the online marketplace where
people were supposed to be able to compare and buy insurance easily starting
Oct. 1 “a miserably frustrating experience for way too many Americans.”

“You deserve better,” she said at a
House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing. “I apologize.”

And when the terrier from Tennessee,
Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn, snapped at Sebelius, asking who was
responsible for the mess, Sebelius said, “Hold me accountable for the debacle.
I’m responsible.”

A day earlier, Marilyn Tavenner, administrator
of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency responsible for
setting up the online marketplaces, also apologized.

“To the millions of Americans who’ve
attempted to use HealthCare.gov to shop and enroll in health care coverage, I
want to apologize to you that the Web site has not worked as well as it
should,” Tavenner said at a House Ways and Means Committee hearing.

President Barack Obama, while stopping
short of an actual apology, has said “nobody is madder than me.” He apparently can’t
brake for pronouns at a time like this.

Seriously, the president must be mad
at himself for letting this fiasco befall his signature legislative achievement.
It’s his legacy at stake. Obama struck a confident note Wednesday in Boston,
insisting that the rollout problems are solvable. A lot is riding on whether the
website is running smoothly Nov. 30, as promised,

In his speech at Faneuil Hall, Obama
sought to clear up confusion about his oft-repeated promise that people could
keep their insurance under the new system. Some people who buy health insurance
on the individual market have received cancellation notices. Obama explained
that a few policies fail to meet consumer protection standards in the health
law, but the people will be eligible for better coverage and possibly for
premium subsidies.

Typically, embattled public figures
follow the old legal advice to doctors facing malpractice claims: “Defend and
deny.” Testifying before Congress, the lawyered-up contractors who engineered
the troubled marketplace avoided showing even a smidgen of remorse.

When a top-level public servant like
Sibelius has the wit to apologize and sound sincere, she conveys the sense that
she gets it, that she knows real people are being hurt by her agency’s ineptitude.

Don’t get me wrong. An apology – many
apologies -- from Washington won’t shorten anyone’s wait on HealthCare.gov or pay
the insurance premium. People want results; they want their government to work.

At the same time, though, people should
realize that Obamacare is a moving political target.

“We did not wage this long and contentious
battle just around a website,” the president says. As rocky as the rollout of
the exchanges has been, the president insists, the Affordable Care Act is
already working to make insurance more readily available and affordable. That,
of course, won’t satisfy the law’s foes.

Obama repeatedly says he’ll work
with anyone who wants to fix the law, but congressional Republicans have no
interest in mending it. If it’s not the website, it’s the canceled policies or the
cost of premiums or something else. The GOP needs to be accountable too.

Where,Republicans, is your
long-promised alternative to the health law? Let us see it – or help fix what’s
broken.

A president saves his apologies for
big moments. Obama reportedly apologized to irate
German Chancellor Angela Merkel after news broke that the United States had been
listening to her phone calls for years. He apologized
Oct. 8, during the government shutdown, for the unfolding fiscal dramas in
Washington.

“To all the American people: I
apologize,” he said, but he couldn’t resist turning the apology into a rebuke,
saying what he needs to do is to break his foes of their bad habits in
negotiations.

Speaking of apologies, I’ve yet to
see tea party Republicans apologize for shutting down the government or sending
the world’s blood pressure sky high with games over raising the debt ceiling.

An apology is not a solution, but it
is a start. It takes guts to say you’re sorry. Who’ll be next?

Thursday, October 24, 2013

President Barack Obama has called in the cavalry to fix the
health exchange rollout fiasco. He has a new tech czar and “some of the best IT
talent in the country” working 24-7 to remove the chewing gum clogging the system.

Too bad Obama can’t fix human nature. People naturally
resent playing by tech rules, even when it’s in their best interest. More on
that in a minute.

Congressional hearings with political overtones are
investigating the botched healthcare.gov website. Contractors who engineered
parts of the contraption blame each other and the federal government. Republicans,
and even a few Democrats, want the head of Health and Human Services Secretary
Kathleen Sebelius. She will face the wrath of the House Energy and Commerce
Committee next week.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which was in
charge of the rollout, went ahead with it despite warnings the system
wouldn’t work.

An insurance executive who was involved in an industry
testing group told The Washington Post that it was clear a month before the
launch that CMS was still working on how the exchanges would handle enrollment,
federal subsidies and the security of consumers’ personal information, such as
income.

That’s a lot. But the last item -- security of personal
information – is most crucial. Millions of people have to give up their birth
dates, Social Security numbers, employment and income information to sign up
for insurance. For people to sign up, they must be confident the government
will keep their sensitive information safe.

And that leads to another issue. As bad as the tech problems
are, the inevitable conflict between man and machine is more troublesome. The insurance
marketplaces – like other online accounts – safeguard personal information by
requiring customers to answer security questions to verify their identity.

Big problem: Many people are flummoxed by online security
questions, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

Among the questions: What was your high school mascot?
Favorite childhood superhero? Street you lived on in third grade?

“I don’t think they took baby boomers into account when they
invented those questions,” a 58-year-old massage therapist in Texas told the
Journal. Margo Benge said she gave up when she could answer only two of the 12
possible questions – and she needed to answer three. “I barely remember two weeks ago, let alone
childhood,” she said.

And I thought it was just me.

I’ve been resisting online security questions for years. The
problem is the questions sound so reasonable.
In what school did you start first grade?

Anyone would know that, right? Not necessarily. An Air Force
brat, I went to 10 schools before I graduated from high school. I don’t
remember a thing about my school in first grade, except that it was in Germany.

These are details a machine can summon effortlessly. It’s
not as easy for men and women. Life is messy. Our memories overlap, fade and
reconstitute.

Best friend? Don’t make me choose.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I want websites to do whatever
they can to assure privacy. But many web-savvy people say the questions don’t
stop determined hackers anyway. Sarah Palin’s
email was hacked by someone who found out her birth date, ZIP code and the name
of her high school – information that’s widely available on Google and
Facebook.

Here’s a solution. Anyone can arbitrarily decide from today
forward that he or she had Miss Raven as first grade teacher, lived on Lenore Street
in third grade and rode a red bike to Edgar Allen Poe Elementary School. Stumped by security questions? Nevermore.

We humans just have to remember what we made up. We can make
a note. On paper.

Friday, October 18, 2013

President Barack Obama says there were no political winners
in the crisis over the federal government shutdown and debt limit. Most
Americans, regardless of their political persuasion, probably agree.

In Washington, though, every moment has a winner and a
loser. Once the latest financial calamity was averted, most political analysts thought
the president was a winner because he showed some spine, gave up nothing and
kept his signature health care legislation intact.

Conservative Republicans, on the other hand, were losers because
they totally misread the political landscape. Their ill-conceived attempt to
defund Obamacare shut down the government, idled 800,000 workers for 16 days and
hurt the economy – but it yielded only a minor tweak in the health care law. People
who seek subsidies to buy insurance on the exchanges will have to provide
income verification.

Some tea party Republicans cling to the fig leaf notion that
their failed fight over the shutdown actually awakened the nation to the evils
of the Affordable Care Act and support will blossom. Really?

Meanwhile, every Democrat, Republican and independent coast
to coast will pay the cost of the federal shutdown in dollars -- and also in
the incalculable currency of trust.

The pricetag of the latest shutdown hasn’t been released,
but two shutdowns lasting a total of 26 days in 1995-96 cost more than $1.4
billion, the Congressional Research Service reported. That’s $2.1 billion in
current dollars. Most of the money went for back pay for furloughed federal
workers.

The dollar waste is unnecessary and maddening. Trust in our
institutions and government is in short supply.

To squander the people’s trust hurts our political system and is heartbreaking.

“The American people are completely fed up with Washington,”
Obama said Thursday. He’s right, of
course, but it would be nice if he or anyone else could say that Washington has
learned from its misadventure and will work to rebuild the trust it has squandered.
There are only glimmers that some in Congress have learned lessons.

In reaching the deal, members of Congress did what they
should have done months ago. They did their jobs.

The bipartisan agreement reopened
the government and raised the debt limit, allowing the United States to pay the
bills it racked up with two unfunded wars and an unfunded Medicare drug benefit.
It’s merely a reprieve that postpones the fight. In two months or so, we may
face another fiscal crisis.

The plan Obama signed Thursday funds the government through
Jan. 15 and raises the debt ceiling through Feb. 7. On the way there, a
bipartisan, bicameral budget conference is supposed to come up with a long-term
plan on tax and spending policies by Dec. 13. The two Republicans on the
conference committee voted against the bill ending the crisis, and the two Democrats
voted for it. That’s hardly a promising sign.

A glimmer of hope is the 14 centrist senators led by Sen.
Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, who worked together on an agreement that
served as a point of departure for the final deal. The centrists were
disappointed their plan didn’t prevail, but they pledge to keep working
together.

The next round of negotiations could take place in an even more acidic political atmosphere because of
the calendar.

Obama chided Republicans on Thursday, saying, “You don’t
like a particular policy or a particular president, then argue for your
position. Go out there and win an election. Push to change it. But don’t
break…what our predecessors spent over two centuries building.”

Some analysts say the looming 2014 congressional elections
could have a sobering effect on conservatives in the House. In most
congressional districts, though, a Republican incumbent fears a challenger from
his right more than a Democratic one. For most House members, compromise in
Washington can be a terrible career move.

Traditionally, people hate
Congress but like their own member of Congress. That may be changing. About
three in four people said they want to see most members of Congress defeated
next year. And about four in 10 said they’d like to retire their own member of
Congress, a new Pew Research Center survey found.

It’s very possible that we’ll lurch once again from one financial crisis to
the next. That not only would be a shame but would be a drain on what’s left of
trust in government.

This year, Medicare’s open enrollment overlaps with open enrollment for the new insurance marketplaces or exchanges created under the Affordable Care Act, also commonly referred to as Obamacare — but don’t let that throw you. Medicare’s 50 million-plus beneficiaries, most of them seniors, will steer clear of the marketplaces.

Got questions? Here’s what you need to know about Medicare’s open enrollment in the marketplace era.

AARP Members Enjoy Health and Wellness Discounts

Q: I have Medicare. Can I use my online state insurance marketplace to compare and buy a Medicare Advantage, supplement or prescription plan?

A: No, the marketplaces (also known as health exchanges) are not for Medicare beneficiaries. They are mostly for uninsured Americans and do not offer Medicare Advantage, medigap supplemental policies or Part D prescription plans. Medicare is not changing because of the marketplaces. For a medigap or Medicare Advantage plan, consultwww.medicare.gov.

Q: What if I mistakenly sign up for insurance on the marketplace, will my Medicare coverage be automatically canceled?

A: No, if you have Medicare coverage, you won’t qualify for insurance on the marketplace. But if you do sign up for a plan accidentally, cancel the marketplace policy.

Q: But I’m a Medicare beneficiary, and someone contacted me and said I could buy insurance through the marketplace. What’s up?

A: It’s illegal for someone to knowingly sell a Medicare beneficiary a marketplace plan. Watch out for scammers during open enrollment. Do not share your Medicare number or personal information with anyone who says he or she can sell you a plan through the marketplace.

Q: Can I get the premium tax credit that people get when they buy insurance on the marketplaces?

A: If you’re enrolled in Medicare, you’re not eligible for the tax credits that some people qualify for on the marketplaces, but you already get a substantial break on costs. The overall costs of care under Medicare Part B, which pays doctors’ visits, and Part D, the prescription drug benefit, are subsidized 75 percent from federal general revenues. Plus, if you’re a Medicare beneficiary with limited resources and income, you may qualify for low-cost Part D drug coverage under the Extra Help program. Go to www.ssa.gov, call 800-772-1213 or visit your local Social Security office.

Q. I’ve just become eligible for Medicare, but I haven’t signed up yet and haven’t started collecting Social Security. Can I choose coverage on the marketplace instead of Medicare?

A. Yes, but be aware that if you fail to sign up for Medicare during your initial seven-month enrollment period — the three months before the month you turn 65, your birthday month and three months after your 65th birthday — you may have to pay a late enrollment penalty for as long as you have Medicare. Also, if you don’t enroll in Medicare Part B during your initial enrollment period, you can sign up only during what’s called the general enrollment period — Jan. 1 through March 31 — and your coverage won’t begin until July of that year.

More Medicare

Q: I’ll turn 65 next year and will become eligible for Medicare, but I don’t have health insurance now. Can I use the marketplace?

A: Yes, you’re uninsured and can buy a plan on the marketplace now that will be effective Jan. 1. Once you receive Medicare coverage, you should cancel the marketplace plan.

Q: I’m 65, a legal immigrant with a green card and have lived in this country for three years. Can I get Medicare coverage?

A: No, Medicare requires that you have lived in the United States continuously for five years. You may qualify for a health insurance plan on the marketplace, which does not have a residency waiting period.

Q: I’m 65 and Medicare-eligible, but I’m still working and covered by my employer’s health plan. My employer says she may terminate the company plan next year. What are my options?

A: If you didn’t sign up for Medicare Part A or Part B when you were first eligible because you were covered by a group plan based on current employment — yours or a spouse’s — you can sign up for Part A or Part B (or both) anytime you’re still covered by the group plan or during an eight-month period that begins the month after your coverage ends.

Q: I’m eligible for Medicare but didn’t sign up on time, and I haven’t bought insurance through the marketplace. Will I have to pay a fine?

A: Yes, if you’re uninsured and don’t qualify for an exemption to the requirement that everyone carry health insurance in 2014, you will have to pay a penalty. Exemptions include being a member of a federally recognized Indian tribe or having income too low to file a tax return.

Q: I have only Medicare Part A. Do I need to buy more insurance to meet the legal requirement that I have insurance?

A: No, whether you’re in a traditional Medicare or a Medicare Advantage plan, you meet the insurance requirement.

Q: I’m 60 and retired, but I’m too young for Medicare. I get my insurance through my former employer’s retiree health plan. Do I need to get additional coverage on the marketplace to comply with the health law?

AARP Members Enjoy Health and Wellness Discounts

Q: I’m not thrilled with my plan, but there are a lot of choices. Where do I start?

A: Use the Plan Finder tool at www.medicare.gov to compare costs and benefits for each plan available in your area. Details of 2014 plans are available now. If you need personal help, call your State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP). Contact information is at www.shiptalk.org. If you have Medicare Advantage or a Part D prescription drug plan, you should have received a notice of changes for 2014 in the mail. It will tell you whether your premiums, deductibles, copays and benefits will change next year.

Q: Can’t people change their Medicare coverage later than December?

A. Yes, between Jan. 1 and Feb. 14 every year, people with Medicare Advantage plans can leave their plans and switch to traditional Medicare, if they choose. In specific circumstances, such as a move, people can change Medicare coverage anytime.

Q: I’m happy with my current Medicare choices. What do I do during open enrollment?

A: Not a thing. Your current choices will continue next year.

Q: Where can I find more Medicare information?

A: For enrollment information, go to Social Security’s website, www.ssa.gov or call 800-772-1213. For coverage information, go to www.medicare.gov or call 800-MEDICARE (800-633-4227).

Marsha Mercer is a freelance writer in the Washington, D.C., area who covers health policy.